According to a Body Shop campaign slogan, "There are three billion women who don't look like supermodels and only eight who do."

And yet many people still strive to look like the unattainable “norm” that is represented in the media. Of course, most models and celebrities are far from normal – they are at the extreme end of the spectrum, where air-brushing, cosmetic surgery, and personal trainers are standard tools of their trade.

Measuring your own physique against these impossibly high standards of the media is damaging to your body confidence. However, it can be very hard to escape the influences when they're all around you. You have to find other ways to disconnect.

Disconnect it: To minimize the impact of media perfection you need to learn to disconnect. Remind yourself daily (and whenever you feel jealous of a billboard babe), that media images of beauty are not real. You are. You’re alive, breathing, thinking and being, and that’s beautiful. You might never be an image on the cover of a magazine, but why would you want to? Redefine “the body beautiful” in your own mind.

Most people were teased in some way as a child, but some carry the scars around for longer than others.

If you were teased for being fat, or even just “affectionately” referred to as “Chubs” or something similar by your friends and family when you were young, then you may never have shaken off that label. It could be making a significant difference to how you feel about your body now.

Let it go: Deal with the labels of the past by realizing they came from outside, perhaps from people who were too critical or unaccepting, or just plain insensetive. To let go, you need to disown those fictional labels and negative images from the past. If you are trapped in a childhood or teenage image of yourself, it's time to develop your adult sense of who you are.